The Rich And The Rest Of Us: A Poverty Manifesto

I read a large chunk of this book sitting in my car in the leafy suburban paradise of River Forest, Illinois while waiting for my daughters at a birthday party. It is a suburb of Chicago filled with $300,000+ single family homes, well-manicured lawns, good schools and safe places for children to play. There are probably at least a couple dozen suburbs of similar affluence in the metro Chicago are.I live a couple suburbs over in the more working-class/blue collar Town of Cicero. Cicero has some pockets of deep poverty and has had a fair number foreclosed/abandoned homes and other evidence that the Recession hit hard. Nonetheless, Cicero is not blighted and the neighborhoods have mostly held on. The schools are decent, if a bit crowded and it’s not unsafe for children to play outside. There are also probably dozens of Chicago suburbs similar to Cicero.I bring up these two suburbs as examples to illustrate my main concern with Smiley and West’s manifesto on poverty: the black and white division between “the rich” and “the rest of us”. I’m going to guess that very few people in River Forest consider themselves “rich”, despite their average family incomes approaching or exceeding the six-figure mark. Indeed, I would be surprised if very many River Forest residents are in the 1%, let alone the 0.01% who actually control the nation and the world.On the other hand, despite its comparative lesser wealth, I doubt many people in Cicero consider themselves really poor. I would guess that more Cicero residents than River Forest residents are struggling to make ends meet, but by-and-large people are managing to stay in their homes, the Catholic Schools fill up each year and the food pantry, while well-patronized, is not overrun. All of which is to say that, while I agree that income and wealth inequality is real and rising, it’s really not the way I’d guess that most people view the nation. Poverty is certainly on more people’s radar and probably a growing concern for more of the lower middle and working classes, but it’s not (yet?) a reality for most Americans and presenting this book in such black/white terms is really not going to win over those still in the middle, especially those who enjoy moderate affluence and don’t appreciate feeling demonized. I think it would have behooved Smiley and West to define their terms and demarcate their lines more clearly and acknowledge that there still is a middle class, albeit a shrinking one.My other issue is that this book is fairly shallow and superficial. It is definitely easy to read – each chapter is broken down into sections that take up no more than a page or two, often off-set with quotes, charts and statistics. But this ease comes at the expense of depth. To adequately cover the nuances involved in discussing poverty, one could easily fill a book twice this size. As just one example, an in depth discussion of the complicated and mutually interacting relationship between poverty and education (and how both are influenced by the privatization of public assets) could have been very beneficial and enlightening. But instead, Smiley and West seemed content to stick with statistics that we have all heard before and sound bites that you already agree or disagree with – there is nothing here that is going to change anyone’s mind.I do give Smiley and West credit for trying to start a conversation on a very difficult topic that most of us would prefer to brush away with platitudes about bootstraps. The most powerful parts of the book are the unfortunately too brief profiles of actual people now living in poverty since the Great Recession. And I credit them with offering positive solutions to the problem, even if they do hedge that there is probably not enough “political will” to accomplish such visions.But there again, I wish they would have delved into the concept of “political will” a bit deeper. In a democracy, “political will” comes from the people making demands upon their elected officials. If nearly half the country is living at or near the poverty line, why isn’t this being translated into “political will”? Sure, they talk about the toxic role of money in controlling the political process. But last I heard, it’s still one person, one vote, not one dollar, one vote. So where does the apathy of the American people come from that tolerates this situation? Why do we keep voting for candidates who don’t represent our interests? We could look, for instance, at our “two party” system in which both parties serve the same corporate behemoths (but that might require criticizing the first black president). We could look at the resistance to third parties, even among those who declare themselves fed up with the two major parties. We could look at the effects of fear, demagoguery, trauma and toxic stress and how those factors are manipulated to continue the “political divide” that benefits the elite. In short, there are any number of avenues that Smiley and West could have explored in depth that could have made this a much more powerful book. Of course, I guess that would have made it a longer and more difficult book to read, and I suppose we’re all too apathetic for that.

This book does an excellent job of detailing the plight and everyday struggles of us poor people as stated in the middle of page153 "Poverty is the new slavery, and the oligarchs are the new kings. The blinders are firmly affixed, and the necessary checks and balances have disappeared. Taxation without representation is now reflected in policies that allow the wealthy to be coddled and under-taxed while the perennially poor, working poor, and "new poor" are ignored and rendered invisible. It is time to reawaken American democracy. It is time for a nonviolent democratic revolution. It is time for righteous indignation against the fleecing of America's poor. And there is no time like the present, given the indifference toward the poor that has infected our political discourse." No one should go hungry in America but unfortunately that is not the case as stated on page 161 "It was no surprise that hunger in America and food scarcity were on the mind of Vicki B. Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America, the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity, during our Remaking America symposium: "While we're working on the longer term and as we think about poverty and all the things that really affect and are a part of poverty, hunger is the one issue that is solvable in our country." It's "criminal", Escarra told us, when 17 million kids in this country go to school hungry every day. Malnutrition affects how they comprehend, behave, learn, and excel at school. Surely, this is a solvable problem, Escarra insisted: "There's enough food produced in America not only to feed every person in this country but also most of the developed world. What I would do is find a way to work on the food system so that we can get what farmers grow to the plates of people that need food."Also dealing with employment for us poor people as stated on page170-171 "Despite talk of the job market's seeming recovery, it remains harder than ever to find work in America. For many, having a job is still not enough. Even as corporate profits have soared (with 40 percent going to big banks), more adults are in poverty than ever before. Middle class jobs are vanishing. In 2011, high-wage industries accounted for only 14 percent of new jobs. Meanwhile, low-wage work made up almost half of all the job growth. Close to 9 million people said they were working part-time only because they could not find full-time employment. We can no longer judge anyone who is living poor in America as someone who is lazy or who has made a series of avoidable bad choices. Such pat indictments and stereotypes obscure a fundamental truth: there is poverty of opportunity in America. America no longer has enough work for able-bodied people, and too many working people are not paid a living wage. The catastrophic downward spiral created by the Great Recession and exacerbated by the unfair tax exemptions on America's wealthiest 1 percent has now sentenced millions to the unenviable ranks of those who have lost the ability to earn a living in America."The corporate media owned and controlled by the 1% are constantly feeding us lies about poverty in America but the truth is this, starting on page 171-175 "It took the Great Recession to make poverty a real threat to the American Psyche. When folk who didn't fit the stereotype started losing their businesses, jobs, and homes, and had to rely on government handouts, they took notice." On page 173-175 "TEN LIES ABOUT POVERTY THAT AMERICA CAN NO LONGER AFFORD:..............................." If you want to know what these 10 lies are you will have to buy and read this book every poor person in America should use this book as a guideline manual for the fight against poverty.

Cornel West is an amazing political theorist who draws upon facts and figures on the poverty line in America. An educational and inspiring piece of literature.

Fantastic service. Arrived quickly and in tip top condition. Book holds a lot of knowledge that I plan to use to aid me in my school work. Thanks.

As described